


The Inauspicious Beginning

by shimmer_like_agirl



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Blood, F/M, Flirting, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2019-08-22 23:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16607522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimmer_like_agirl/pseuds/shimmer_like_agirl
Summary: A lesser, more squeamish pair might have taken it for a bad omen, but these two manage to turn a painful situation into an opportunity to flirt.





	1. Chapter 1

Most of the bandits surrounding the blacksmith’s missing shipment had been routed easily enough. The group of them hadn’t been expecting any opposition out in the Black Meadow, and the supposed safety of their number had made them overconfident. They’d found the idea that they could be so soundly defeated by a measly three adventurers, though admittedly hardy as they were, laughable at the outset of the altercation. Several of them had even jeered aloud at the invitation to stand down and hand over the stolen goods. By the end, only their leader remained to curse the folly of their misconception; and he, being the stubborn, willful type, refused to back out of the fight no matter that the odds were far out of his favour.

The remaining bandit, too injured to be genuinely considered a threat, was tenaciously grappling with a weary Aloth who, despite his best efforts, was unable to shake the man. He could neither get clear enough to accurately cast a spell nor manage to strike his doggedly clinging assailant with enough force to convince him to give up.

Some distance away Adira kept a careful watch on the stalemated skirmish while searching the battleground for the arrows to replenish her mostly spent quiver. The fading sun made it difficult for the ranger to pinpoint any of her used arrows. Only one arrow remained and she was loathe to use it unless the situation turned dire. That arrow was the last of a set given to her by a close friend years earlier. It was a particularly vicious implement given that it was heavily barbed and could shear through plated armour as easily as a knife through butter. It was also a pain in the ass to remove from a target which caused her reluctance to use it unless necessary. The last two had been lost when no amount of force would extract them after they’d felled their victims.

From where she watched, it didn’t appear as though the struggle between the wizard and his opponent was going to end on its own. With a regretful sigh, Adira reached back to pull out the arrow and took aim with her bow. She gave a short, sharp whistle to catch Aloth’s attention. Despite this being only the third day they’d been travelling and fighting together, they’d already adapted a series of signals that, up to this point, had worked out rather well. Upon hearing that whistle, Aloth would drop to the ground, getting clear as quickly as possible and allowing her an open shot at the target.

Seconds passed, ticking away slowly as she waited for the opportunity to strike. The longer their grappling continued, the more her arm ached to release. She wouldn’t be able to keep her bow drawn for too much longer. Finally, just as her arm was about to give, Aloth dropped out of her sightline, and she loosed the arrow with relief, watching with no small satisfaction as it travelled straight and true towards her target’s head.

The self-congratulatory mood lasted for only a few moments before it shattered into thousands of pieces. In Adira's haste to put an end to the battle, she had failed to take into account the whereabouts of the remaining member of her party. Mere seconds before her arrow would have reached its intended target, Edér arrived on the scene, swinging his shield in a wide arc to bash into the bandit and send him sprawling to the ground. He skillfully finished the man off with his sabre and had already sheathed the weapon by the time he realized something had gone horribly wrong.

Adira was already racing towards him, her lion at her heels, waving her arms and shouting instructions she wasn’t even sure he could hear. If he could, he made no indication. Edér stared down, somewhat dumbfounded, at the arrow that had been destined for the bandit’s head was now protruding from his left shoulder. When the ranger finally reached his side, he tore his eyes from the sight. “You shot me!”

“You weren’t supposed to be there!” She reached out to stop the hand that was moving to grip the embedded arrow. “Don’t do that!” He bristled at the shouted order but didn’t struggle as she guided his hand away. “You can’t pull it out that way,” she explained with a calmness in her voice that she did not feel. “It’s barbed. If you try to yank it out, it’ll do far more damage than it did going in and it’ll hurt at least a hundred times more than it does right now.”

His already pale face blanched at that. The adrenaline rush from the fight had dulled the pain thus far, but it would quickly become unbearable, even for someone who seemed as impervious to pain as Edér often did. From the look on his face, the agony was setting in. “How do I get it out?” he asked the question between clenched teeth.

“I can remove it for you, but I need you to stay calm and don’t make any sudden movements,” she said gently. “Can you do that?” At his answering nod, she motioned for Aloth to come closer. “Here’s what’s going to happen. First, we’re going to get you sitting on the ground and then Aloth and I are going to get your armour off so that I can stop the bleeding. You can’t see it, but you’re losing a lot of blood under there.” Her biggest worry at that point was him losing too much blood and going into shock. She wasn’t a trained healer by any stretch of the imagination and they were too far from civilization to get the help he would need.

Luckily for them both, the situation wasn’t entirely hopeless. If it had been just the two of them, they would have been far worse off, but being part of a trio was an advantage. At Adira's instruction, Aloth’s nimble fingers began the process of unbuckling and removing the numerous belts holding Edér’s scale armour firmly in place. While he did that, Adira carefully snapped the shaft of the arrow in two as close to the point of entry as possible. It pained her to destroy the last of those arrows, but there was no way around it. The armour wouldn’t come off with the projectile intact.

Between the two of them, they had him stripped to the waist in no time. Adira tried to keep her expression neutral as she examined the wound knowing there were two sets of eyes on her watching for her reaction. The arrowhead was embedded deep into his shoulder with all three barbs submerged under the skin. The wound itself wasn’t bleeding as profusely as she’d feared, but still enough to be worrisome. There was no way to know for sure just how severe the damage was until she could completely remove the arrow.

“Aloth, do you remember where we dropped our packs before the fight?”

He nodded and gestured vaguely westward. “It was a way back over there. What do you need?”

“I have a field triage kit in my pack with the blue ribbon tied to it.” She looked up at the rapidly darkening sky. “And we’ll need some torches...some water...and blankets. Bring as much as you can carry as quickly as you can.”

“Not to worry. I’ll back before you know it.” He squeezed her shoulder comfortingly before turning on his heel and heading off in the direction of their packs.

As soon as he’d left, Adira set about tearing strips off her cloak which she then pressed firmly, if carefully, against the wound to try to stop the bleeding. She glanced periodically over at her patient’s face, trying to gauge how he was handling all this. “You hanging in there, big guy?” she asked lightly as she wound another strip of fabric around the arrowhead.

“Big guy? Didn’t realize we were already giving each other pet names.” The grin he flashed her way, while nowhere near it’s normal radiance, was encouraging. “Already getting sweet on me, Watcher? You know, if you wanted to get some alone time with me, there are easier ways.”

“You think so?” she asked, not missing a beat. “My mama used to tell me the surest way to tell if someone was for you was to shoot them. If they survived and stuck around, they were a keeper.” A brief pause allowed her to check on the bleeding. It was definitely slowing. “She shot five people before she met my papa.”

A sound that was part laugh and part groan escaped his lips. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not!” She really wasn’t. “She didn’t like any of her other suitors, but they wouldn’t leave her alone, so she went after them with her bow. By the time my papa showed up, she had a reputation to uphold, but she ended up completely enamoured with him. So they compromised and he got an arrow to the right butt cheek.”

“You could’ve told me that was an option.” It spoke volumes about his state of mind that he was able to maintain this line of conversation given the circumstances. “A barbed arrow to the shoulder seems a little like overkill.”

A playful grin curled the corners of her lips. “Maybe I just wanted to see what you were hiding under all that armour.”

“Remind me to introduce you to the concept of buying a guy a drink first and then try seeing where that goes.”

“Oh, is that the way they do things out here in Dyrwood?” Her eyes widened in mock innocence. “Seems a little…..tame.”

“Honestly I’m okay with ‘tame’.” He winced then as she pressed tentatively on the wad of cloth covering his wound. “What do you say, if I somehow manage to survive this, we’ll try doing it my way?”

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” she promised with a warm smile before turning her attention back to the situation at hand. “How’s the pain?”

“I’ve had hangnails worse than this.” The grimace that marred his features told a different story than his words.

“Can you be serious just for a minute?” A stern glare followed her question. “This is kind of important for me to know. On a scale of one to ten, one being laying on a fluffy comfy bed and ten being boiled alive in hot lava while listening to me try to play the fiddle, how bad is it?”

“Twenty.” Any idea that he might still be joking was erased by the absolute agony that crossed his face when he let his guard down. “Thirty if I think about it.”

“How are you still conscious? By all rights, you should be passed out.”

“Just trying to impress you. Is it working?”

“It’s safe to say I’m thoroughly impressed.”

“Good to know the effort ain’t wasted.” His eyes flickered briefly over to where the lion sat passively watching nearby, and it was clear that an idea was forming in spite of the pain. “You think I could try petting Elith now? Since you’re gonna have to stitch me up anyway? Consider it repayment for shooting me.”

“Only you would come up with a request like that,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s a horrible idea, Edér.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Figured it was worth asking. Guess you’re stuck buying me drinks instead to make it up to me,” he added with a smirk.

Adira couldn’t help but laugh, wondering how she’d managed to stumble across someone like Edér. They were in one of worst situations she could imagine, but instead of feeling panicked and desperate, she was having a strangely good time. She wasn’t sure she believed his flirting was entirely genuine. They’d both engaged in some jokingly light flirting almost immediately after initially meeting, but she couldn’t be sure right now that it wasn’t mostly a coping mechanism on both their parts. That was something she could figure out once the danger was past.

Moments later Aloth returned to the scene, straining under what looked like every single one of their packs. With a somewhat ungraceful motion, he unburdened himself of load and bent over, hand on his knees, to catch his breath. “I thought I would attempt to make it all in one trip since we’re losing the light,” he explained, having to pause to take a breather. “It was a rather excellent idea until I actually started moving. It’s all here, though.“

“You’re my hero,” she told him while choosing to ignore the mildly injured look Edér directed at her. “Take a minute to catch your breath and I’ll get ready here. I’ll need your help once I start.”

Setting up took surprisingly little time and soon enough she had her triage supplies at the ready as well as several torches lit to make up for the absence of daylight. “Ready to go, Aloth?”

“I’m yours to command,” he said, taking up position and kneeling at Edér’s shoulder.

“What about you, big guy? Ready to cross the line from unbearable pain to unspeakable agony?”

The fleeting moment of hesitation would have been easy enough to miss if she hadn’t been watching his expression so closely. Nevertheless, he answered her with a confident nod. “Let’s get it over with.”

“I’ll try to be quick, but I want to minimize the damage as much as I can.” The barbs were intended to create carnage, not the other way around, and getting the arrowhead out was going to be tricky. Adira removed the makeshift bandages, happily noting that the bleeding had stopped completely, and instructed Aloth to hold the wound open.

After a deep breath to centre herself, she focused on what looked to be the easiest of the barbs to remove. The tiniest of whimpers reached her ears as she touched the area around it, but he didn’t move at all, relieving her unspoken worry that she might have to hold Edér down. Even so, a new tension emanated from all three of them now that she’d started. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to function at peak capacity with that feeling pressing down around her, so she did the only thing she knew to do, she started talking.

“Now that I’m lucky enough to have a captive audience, let me tell you the story of how I got my hands on these barbaric things,” she said, referring to the arrow that had gotten them in this whole mess. “A few years back I fell in with a small group of mercenaries for hire. They were all female and the toughest group I’ve ever run across, either before or after,” she stated with a proud smirk even though her eyes never left her work.

“We were hanging out in a tavern one night in between jobs and these two young orlan women approached our table to ask if we’d consider working security for a small troupe of travelling performers. The others weren’t interested, but I was ready for a change, so I went with them.”

The storytelling seemed to be having the desired effect and she laughed victoriously as the first of the barbs came free. Encouraged, she continued with the tale. “Their headliner, Razaleth, was a moon godlike and I swear she was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen...all radiant and glowing with a gorgeous head of blue curls tumbling down her back.” She grinned at Aloth’s raised eyebrow but didn’t answer his unspoken question.

“Raza claimed she could speak to the dead and foretell the future, for a fee, of course. Her whole act was this big dramatic production. She would bring people up on stage with her and give them messages from beyond the grave.”

“Do you think she was a Watcher?”

“Not that she told me. I was assigned to her security and we became quite close. She did eventually share that she was a cipher, but also that she rarely used it in her act.” The second of the barbs came free with the help of her tools and she silently congratulated herself before moving onto the third. “Raza was a born performer and a total charlatan. She was amazingly good at reading people and she had this knack of knowing what they wanted to hear.

“Everything went smoothly for several months. I was rarely actually needed in terms of security until this one night when this absolute braggart of a noble demanded a private showing with her. She did it begrudgingly, and he was such an ass to her. He demanded that she talk to his deceased father and ask him where he’d hidden the family’s treasury. She went into this deep trance while she “spoke” to his father and then told him, very gravely, that daddy dearest said ‘you’re a fucking disappointment of a son and you deserve nothing more than to live out the rest of your days in poverty’.

“Needless to say, he didn’t take that well. He was so incensed that he lunged to attack her. I attempted to pull him off her, but in the scuffle, he somehow managed to impale himself on my knife. There was so much blood everywhere that he died almost instantly.” Adira shuddered at the memory. “Knowing that we’d be in so much trouble if we were caught, Raza and I took everything of value we could carry, cut a hole in the back of the performance tent, and disappeared into the night. We travelled together for a few weeks before we decided to go our separate ways. She had a plan to start her own show and I wanted to see what else was out there. Before we parted, she gave me a quiver full of those barbed arrows. She wouldn’t tell me where she’d gotten them, but they served me well.”

“And now the last one is lodged in my shoulder.” Edér ground his teeth in a silent grimace. “Effigy’s eyes, woman, be careful.”

“Sorry.” The last, and worst, of the barbs was almost free. “Just a little bit more, big guy, and then you’re home free.” Biting her lip in concentration, she finally slid the sharp piece of metal out of the surrounding tissue and heaved a sigh of relief. The rest was much easier and it took only a few more minutes to clean and stitch up the wound. When she was finished, she reached into her pack and withdrew her favourite flask to hand to her patient. “Drink up. You deserve this.”

Without comment, Edér took one long pull and then a second before handing it back. “This has been fun, Watcher, but next date I get to pick the activity. I’m thinking lots of food, drinks, maybe some dancing…..”

“Just name the time and place and I’ll be there, big guy.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edér gets a little out of sorts at the thought of being left behind

Never let it be said that Edér Teylecg didn't enjoy a joke, particularly one at his expense. Admittedly, his tastes tended towards the darker side of humour, and he had no choice but to congratulate the gods on successfully raising the stakes in that department. The irony of being so severely injured that he was now essentially pinned down and forced to remain in the very town he'd finally made the long-overdue decision to leave was downright poetic.

Not that the farmer knew anything about poetry, that had never been his thing. Dirty limericks? Those he could recite by the dozen from memory. Campfire songs about burning your god in effigy? Well, he knew a few of those, too. But poetry? Not so much. Still, he'd willingly read a thick tome of the most flowery and pretentious poems ever written if it meant he could get out of Gilded Vale sooner.

'Course that decision wasn't really up to him anymore. The aching wound in his shoulder, the result of friendly fire during a skirmish with a group of bandits only days before, had only just started to heal. Even after several nights rest and the last of his healing potions, Edér could barely keep hold of a shield with his injured arm. Hel, he was pretty sure he'd lose a fight with a stiff breeze. There was no way he was healed enough to withstand any kind of prolonged encounter.

That was his own, privately held, opinion, and one that Adira ultimately agreed with. Her opinion had been expressed very verbally, albeit tactfully. The Watcher, while not a professional healer by any definition, had enough experience with both wounds and basic anatomy to understand this was one of those cases where it was better to err on the side of caution. Their planned journey to Caed Nua would need to be postponed for a few more days at the very least, until she was convinced he wouldn't exacerbate his injuries.

In his heart, he knew it was the best decision, even if he'd tried to argue against it only hours before. "Don't be ridiculous, Edér," she'd scolded softly at him when he'd insisted he was well enough to travel. "I refuse to risk your health. I know you're eager to leave, but as the one responsible for putting an arrow through your shoulder, it would put my guilty mind at ease knowing I'm not endangering you further. Just give yourself a little more time to heal, for my sake." Then she'd squeezed his hand and bestowed on him a little smile that utterly disarmed any further argument he might have raised.

At least he didn't appear to be in any danger of the hanging he'd been sure had been on his horizon only a short time ago. 'Course that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with Adira. It wasn't something he could accurately articulate, but she had a way about her. Who knew someone, and a total stranger at that, could waltz into a town on the verge of imploding on itself and somehow manage to have nearly everyone, aside from Raedric's bootlickers, wrapped around her finger in less time than most kith took deciding what to order at a bar that served only one kind of ale? Admittedly, the sheer amount of favours she'd done for the townsfolk hadn't exactly hurt her cause, either.

It was one of those favours that had the ranger planning to head to Anslög's Compass the next morning with Aloth and two other kith she'd hired for the job. Without him. Despite his protests.

And that had led him here, to a chair at the opposite end of the table from the rest of the group, attempting not to let his bitterness shine through. Of the two hired hands Adira had wrangled together, only one gave him any sort of confidence. Ephrael, the nature godlike and wandering paladin, clearly could hold her own in a fight. The other, a tall, lanky boy who couldn't have been more than sixteen, could barely use the sword and shield that had belonged to his father. The kid was going along, hired for the experience as a favour to his mother, another refugee to Gilded Vale.

The four of them were seated close together; heads bowed over a map of the area as they discussed their route and what preparations they would need to make. Well, three of them did. The kid sat next to them, wide-eyed and nodding, but unable to add anything to the conversation.

Being local and knowing the area almost inside out, Edér could have assisted in their plans. Adira had tried on multiple occasions to draw him into their conversation, but he was intent on allowing his peevishness at being left behind colour the entire evening. After a third failed attempt to convince him to join them at the other end of the table, Adira rolled her eyes, shook her head and turned her attention back to the group. She didn't so much as look in his direction for the rest of the night.

Defeated and churlish, Edér returned to his room on the second floor of the Black Hound. Seeing as he'd given up the place he'd been renting in anticipation of leaving, this was his home, however temporarily. His belongings, gathered into a single pack, were stashed in the corner. In a moment of frustration, he grabbed the bag and upended it unceremoniously, letting its meager contents spill out onto the bed.

It was sobering to see his entire life spread out before him and not even cover the whole surface of the lumpy, musty smelling mattress. Was this all he had to show for his thirty-odd years? His armour, a relic of the Saint's War, now in need of repair after being pierced by Adira's arrow. A dagger in dire need of sharpening, a pouch of whiteleaf, his pipe, flint and tinder, a blood-encrusted barbed arrowhead, a dull piece of jasper the size of his thumbnail, and an old Eothasian prayer book he was ashamed to admit he hadn't opened in years? Well, that and the clothes on his back and the handful of coins in his pocket. "A real embarrassment of riches," he said dryly to himself. "They'd be green with envy if they could see you now."

A soft knock at the door interrupted the pity party he was throwing himself. It was either Adira or the politest mob of torch and pitchfork holders waiting to escort him to the hanging he'd previously assumed would be his immediate future. He wasn't sure he was ready to face either option, so he left the knock unanswered.

A second knock came this time with vocal accompaniment. "I know you're in there, Edér," the Watcher's voice floated through the door. "And don't try to pretend you're sleeping. I can hear you moving around in there." After a long pause during which he'd made no move to remove the barrier between them, she sighed. "Okay, we're it this way, I guess." For a moment he thought she'd decided to go ahead and pick the lock. It would have been easy enough for her, but it didn't happen. Instead, she continued their one-sided conversation from her side of the door. "I'm sorry. I know you're unhappy with me."

The quiet resignation in her voice cracked the hard shell he'd tried to form over his heart and set his feet to move across the floor. She let go of the breath she'd been holding once he opened the door. A jumble of words ran over his tongue as he tried to figure out what to say. "I'm not."

Fantastic.

A lie.

"Oh really?" she asked, clearly unconvinced. "Is that why you're up here by yourself drowning in self-pity instead of downstairs with the rest of us?" The woman was too observant, a useful trait in tracking, but horrible when he was trying to hide the truth. "I could've used your help down there earlier."

"Seems like you've got all the help you need." The bitter thread started to make its way back into his consciousness. "Sorry if I don't feel like helping plan an expedition you won't let me be a part of."

"So you are unhappy with me. I knew it." Adira took a tentative step forward, uncertainty written plainly on her face like she expected him to prevent her from entering. Her relief when he stepped aside to allow her to pass by and close the door behind her was palpable. "You may not believe this, but I don't like the idea of leaving you here any more than you."

The admission shouldn't have surprised him, but it did. Having someone see something from his side had been a rarity in these parts for years. Still, the resentment that had been building inside him all day refused to loosen its hold on him. "Could've fooled me. You seem eager enough to leave without me."

Adira winced at the pain in his voice. "That's unfair. I wouldn't be leaving if I thought there was another option."

"What about the option of staying put for a few days until my bloody arm heals? You seem to be intent on ignoring that possibility."

"I'm not ignoring that possibility." She let her eyes stray from him for a moment. "I just don't think it's a realistic possibility." Before he could speak an objection, she reached for the hand of his uninjured arm. "Truthfully, the only reason I agreed to go to Anslög's Compass for Aufra in the first place is that I'm hoping this Ranga woman will have something stronger to help your shoulder. It isn't healing as fast as I hoped and I know it's causing you more pain than you'll admit."

"It's not that bad." Another lie. "I think I could be ready to go tomorrow."

"You don't have to do this, you know," she told him in a way completely free of judgement. "I shot you in the shoulder with one of the most vicious arrows I've ever owned. By all rights, you shouldn't even be standing upright. A lesser kith would still be confined to their sickbed, but here you are walking around like it's nothing but a scratch. But I know what your wound looks like and I know you're in a tremendous amount of pain."

An ill-timed throb in his shoulder caused him to bite down on his lip. He wanted to deny it, but she was right. "I could fight through the pain if you needed me to."

"But that's the thing; I don't need you to. What I need is for you to stay here and rest." She pulled him gently towards the edge of the bed, where she made him sit. "You're more than capable of continuing to take more hits on my behalf, but if you come with me tomorrow and something horrible happens to you and given my luck so far, it likely will, I won't be able to live with myself."

"I...I'm sorry. I've been wallowing in a vat of bitterness for days," he admitted finally. "I never stopped to think about how you were feeling." The soft smile she gave him after the admission was enough to set the dormant butterflies inside him off to fluttering. "Forgive me?"

"Not necessary. It's what we all do," she said, pressing a hand against his cheek. "We're all so concerned with ourselves that sometimes it makes us blind to those around us."

Now it was his turn to be observant, something he would admit didn't happen all too often. "Not all of us. Only known you for a little while and you're always thinking about others. You haven't turned down anyone that's asked you for help, even when you probably should."

"Perhaps I'm as selfish as the next kith and don't show it. Maybe that's the perception I wish others to see." A shake of her head caused her dark curls to bounce. "Enough of that, yeah? I had another reason to come up here."

"And what would that be? You finally gonna cough up that drink you promised me?"

"Oh no, that'll wait until you're stronger." Declining at that exact moment to elaborate further, she set about filling a kettle with water and placing it on the fire. From the pouch, at her waist, she removed two small pouches, pouring the contents of one into a small bowl, and the other into a large mug. When the water reached its boiling point, she removed it from the fire and poured a measured amount into both cup and bowl.

"You planning on explaining this?" he asked from his perch on the bed, raising an eyebrow as he watched her stir both mixtures separately.

"Absolutely, but first I'm going to need you to take off your shirt."

"Well, sure. Not strong enough for drinking, but well enough for _that_?"

Adira laughed even as she levelled him a look that clearly said _that_ was not on the agenda. "This," she said, pointing at the bowl, "is a painkiller for your injury. Its effectiveness would be horribly hampered if I put it on your clothes. Shirt. Off."

"Yes, ma'am." He complied with the order, if with more than a little difficulty. "Maybe I should start cutting the sleeves off all my shirts. Might make this easier in the future."

"If tomorrow goes well, that won't be necessary." She unwrapped the bandage around his shoulder, her face passive as she surveyed the damage she'd done. "Although, if you did decide to do that, you wouldn't hear me complain about the view." Using the rest of the heated water to cleanse the wound, she followed up by applying a generous amount of the unpleasantly fragrant salve to it and then wrapped it with a new bandage.

"Does it need to smell so rank?"

"Mmmmm hmmm that's how you know it works." Her expression gave no hint as to whether or not that was true. "Now for this," she handed him the cup that held her second concoction. "This is one of my favourite teas. It has some pain-relieving qualities, but mostly it'll help you sleep."

Edér sniffed the contents of the cup. At least it smelled better than the salve. "I don't drink tea."

"Tonight, you do."

He was tempted to object but had to admit to himself that the last few nights of sleep hadn't been entirely restful. Still, he wasn't above bargaining for something extra. "If I drink your tea, will you answer a question?"

"If you drink the tea, yes." She didn't even try to qualify what kind of question he could ask. "What do you want to know?"

"That story you told me about your mama shooting your papa to find out if he was suitor material...was that really true?"

"Oh, you remember that, do you?" She laughed that enchantingly lyrical laugh of hers. "That was absolutely true."

"Would you do me a favour then?" he asked after draining the entire drink in one go. "When you're out tomorrow, don't fire any arrows at anyone you don't intend to kill."

"I'm sure I can handle that. Not keen on competition, huh?"

"Not even remotely, at least not until I get the chance to impress you properly." The urge to yawn overtook him. Apparently, the tea worked as intended. "Will you stop by before you leave in the morning?"

Adira smiled in answer and helped him lay more comfortably on the bed. "That means I'll be knocking on your door at the ass crack of dawn," she reminded him gently,

"Don't care," he said sleepily. "Just don't leave without saying goodbye."

"Wouldn't dream of it."


End file.
